The present invention relates to hand-held computing devices. In particular, the present invention relates to user interfaces on hand-held devices.
Hand-held computing devices have gained a niche as personal organizers. These devices allow users to view lists of contacts, tasks or calendar events.
One problem with such devices is that they have a limited sized screen. As such, they are only able to show a portion of the information stored on them. For example, a typical Contacts database has several hundred entries in it. However, on a hand-held device, a user can typically only view 14 contact entries at a time. Without a keyboard, this can make finding a contact or task entry cumbersome. Thus, an improved user interface is needed that improves the user's ability to view the entries that are most important to them.
In some current desktop systems, a special folder is created by the computer's operating system to help users locate files that they have recently accessed. For example, in the Windows 98 operating system from Microsoft Corporation of Redmond, Wash., a folder named “RECENT” is automatically created. This RECENT folder does not contain the actual files, but instead contains a short-cut or link to the files. Thus, the links describe where the files are located on the system. Because the links in the RECENT file are not the actual files, deleting or moving the link does not delete or move the actual file. Instead, it simply deletes or moves the link. As such, to perform operations on the actual file, or filename, the user must first locate the file in the system.